The summer's day had been buried in Charlemagne splendors of purple and
gold; the Spanish sable of the night glittered with its jewel-belt of
stars. The young moon had not yet lifted the silver horns of her Moslem
standard in the far east. We were sailing over lukewarm waves, rising
and falling softly as the breast of a sleeper; winds from the south
bore to us a drowsy perfume of lemon-blossoms; and the yellow lights
among the citron trees seemed, as we rocked upon the long swell, like
the stars of Joseph's dream doing obeisance. Far beyond them a giant
pharos glared at us with its single Cyclopean eye of bloodshot fire,
dyeing the face of the pilot crimson as a pomegranate. At intervals
the sea amorously lipped the smooth flanks of the vessel with a sharp
sound; and ghostly fires played about our prow. Seated upon a coil of
rope a guitarrista sang, improvising as he sang, one of those sweetly
monotonous ballads which the Andalusian gypsies term soleariyas. Even
now the rich tones of that solitary voice vibrate in our memory, almost
as on that perfumed sea, under the light of summer stars:
Sera,
Para mi er mayo delirio
Berte y no poerte habla.
Gacho.
Gacho que no hab ya motas
Es un barco sin timon.
Por ti,
Las horitas e la noche
Me las paso sin dormi.
Sereno,
No de oste la boz tan arta
Que quieo dormi y no pueo.
Marina,
Con que te lavas la cara
Que la tienes tan dibina?
Why he told me his story I know not: I know only that our hearts
understood each other.
"Of my mother," he said, "I knew little when a child; I only remember
her in memories vague as dreams, and perhaps in dreams also. For
there are years of our childhood so mingled with dreams that we
cannot discern through memory the shadow from the substance. But in
those times I was forever haunted by a voice that spoke a tongue only
familiar to me in after years, and by a face I do not ever remember to
have kissed.
"A clear, dark face, strong and delicate, with sharp crescent brows and
singularly large eyes, liquidly black, bending over me in my sleep--the
face of a tall woman. There was something savage even in the tenderness
of the great luminous eyes--such a look as the hunter finds in the eyes
of fierce birds when he climbs to their nests above the clouds; and
this dark dream-face filled me with strange love and fear. The hair,
flowing back from her temples in long ripples of jet, was confined by a
broad silver comb curved and gleaming like a new moon.
"And at last when these dreams came upon me, and the half-fierce,
loving eyes looked upon me in the night, I would awake and go out under
the stars and sob.
"A vast unrest possessed me; a new heat throbbed in my veins, and I
heard forever flute-tones of a strange voice, speaking in an unknown
tongue; but far, far off, like the sounds of words broken and borne
away in fragments by some wandering wind.
"Ocean breezes sang in my ears the song of waves--of waves chanting the
deep hymn that no musician can learn--the mystic hymn whereof no human
ear may ever discern the words--the magical hymn that is older than the
world, and weirder than the moon.
"The winds of the woods bore me odors of tears of spicy gums and the
sounds of bird-voices sweeter than the plaint of running water, and
whispers of shaking shadows, and the refrain of that mighty harp-song
which the pines sing, and the vaporous souls of flowers, and the
mysteries of succubus-vines that strangle the oaks with love.
"Winds also, piercing and cold as Northern eyes, came to me from the
abysses of the rocks, and from peaks whose ermine of snow has never
since the being of the world felt the pressure of a bird's foot; and
they sang Runic chants of mountain freedom, where the lightnings cross
their flickerings. And with these winds came also shadows of birds, far
circling above me, with eyes fierce and beautiful as the eyes of my
dream.
"So that a great envy came upon me of the winds and waves and birds
that circle forever with the eternal circling of the world. Nightly
the large eyes, half fierce, half tender, glimmered through my sleep:
phantom winds called to me, and shadowy seas chanted through their
foam-flecked lips runes weird as the Runes of Odin.
"And I hated cities with the hatred of the camel--the camel that sobs
and moans on beholding afar, on the yellow rim of the desert, the
corpse-white finger of a minaret pointing to the dome of Mahomet's
heaven.
"Also I hated the rumble of traffic and the roar of the race for gold;
the shadows of palaces on burning streets; the sound of toiling feet;
the black breath of towered chimneys; and the vast machines, forever
laboring with sinews of brass, and panting with heart of steam and
steel.
"Only loved I the eyes of night and the women eyes that haunted me--the
silence of rolling plains, the whispers of untrodden woods, the shadows
of flying birds and fleeting clouds, the heaving emerald of waves, the
silver lamentation of brooks, the thunder roll of that mighty hymn of
hexameters which the ocean must eternally sing to the stars.
"Once, and once only, did I speak to my father of the dark and
beautiful dream that floated to me on the misty waves of sleep. Once,
and once only; for I beheld his face grow whiter than the face of Death.
"Encompassed about by wealth and pleasure, I still felt like a bird in
a cage of gold. Books I loved only because they taught me mysteries of
sky and sea--the alchemy of suns, the magic of seasons, the marvels of
lands to which we long forever to sail, yet may never see. But I loved
wild rides by night, and long wrestling with waves silver-kissed by the
moon, and the musky breath of woods, where wild doves wandered from
shadow to shadow, cooing love. And the strange beauty of the falcon
face, that haunted me forever, chilled my heart to the sun-haired
maidens who sought our home, fair like tall idols of ivory and gold.
"Often, in the first pinkness of dawn, I rose from a restless sleep to
look upon a mirror; thirsting to find in my own eyes some dark kindred
with the eyes of my dreams; and often I felt in my veins the blood of a
strange race, not my father's.
"I saw birds flying to the perfumed South; I watched the sea gulls
seeking warmer coasts; I cursed the hawks for their freedom--I cursed
the riches that were the price of my bondage to civilization, the
pleasures that were the guerdon of my isolation among a people not my
own.
--"'O that I were a cloud,' I cried, 'to drift forever with the hollow
wind!--O that I were a wave to pass from ocean to ocean, and chant my
freedom in foam upon the rocks of a thousand coasts!--O that I might
live even as the eagle, who may look into the face of the everlasting
sun!'
"So the summer of my life came upon me, with a madness of longing for
freedom--a freedom as of winds and waves and birds--and a vague love
for that unknown people whose wild blood made fever in my veins,--until
one starless night I fled my home forever.
"I slumbered in the woods at last; the birds were singing in the
emerald shadows above when I awoke. A tall girl, lithe as a palm,
swarthy as Egypt, was gazing upon me. My heart almost ceased to beat.
I beheld in the wild beauty of her dark face as it were the shadow
of the face that had haunted me; and in the midnight of her eyes the
eyes of my dream. Circles of thin gold were in her ears;--her brown
arms and feet were bare. She smiled not; but, keeping her great wild
eyes fixed upon mine, addressed me in a strange tongue. Strange as
India--yet not all strange to me; for at the sound of its savage
syllables dusky chambers of memory long un visited reopened their
doors and revealed forgotten things. The tongue was the tongue spoken
to me in dreams through all those restless years. And she, perceiving
that I understood, although I spoke not, pointed to far tents beyond
the trees, and ascending spirals of lazy smoke.
"'Whithersoever we go, thou shalt also go,' she murmured. 'Thou art of
our people; the blood that flows in thy veins is also mine. We have
long waited and watched for thee, summer by summer, in those months
when the great longing comes upon us all. For thy mother was of my
people; and thou who hast sucked her breasts mayst not live with the
pale children of another race. The heaven is our tent; the birds guide
our footsteps south and north; the stars lead us to the east and west.
My people have sought word of thee even while wandering in lands of
sunrise. Our blood is stronger than wine; our kindred dearer than gold.
Thou wilt leave riches, pleasures, honors, and the life of cities for
thy heart's sake; and I will be thy sister.'
"And I, having kissed her, followed her to the tents of her people--my
people--the world wanderers of the most ancient East."