No rest he knew because of her. Even in the night his heart was ever
startled from slumber as by the echo of her footfall; and dreams mocked
him with tepid fancies of her lips; and when he sought forgetfulness
in strange kisses her memory ever came shadowing between.... So that,
weary of his life, he yielded it up at last in the fevered summer of a
tropical city,--dying with her name upon his lips. And his face was no
more seen in the palm-shadowed streets;--but the sun rose and sank even
as before.
And that vague Something which lingers a little while within the tomb
where the body moulders, lingered and dreamed within the long dark
resting-place where they had laid him with the pious hope--Que en paz
descanse!
Yet so weary of his life had the Wanderer been that the repose of the
dead was not for him. And while the body shrank and sank into dust,
the phantom man found no rest in the darkness, and thought dimly to
himself: _"I am even too weary to find peace!_"
There was a thin crevice in the ancient wall of the tomb. And through
it, and through the meshes of a web that a spider had woven athwart
it, the dead looked and beheld the amethystine blaze of the summer
sky--and pliant palms bending in the warm wind--and the opaline glow of
the horizon, and fair pools bearing images of cypresses inverted--and
the birds that flitted from tomb to tomb and sang--and flowers in the
shadow of the sepulchres ...And the vast bright world seemed to him not
so hateful as before.
Likewise the sounds of life assailed the faint senses of the dead
through the thin crevice in the wall of the tomb:--always the far-off,
drowsy murmur made by the toiling of the city's heart; sometimes
sounds of passing converse and of steps--echoes of music and of
laughter--chanting and chattering of children at play--and the liquid
babble of beautiful brown women.
...So that the dead man dreamed of life and strength and joy, and the
litheness of limbs to be loved: also of that which had been, and of
that which might have been, and of that which now could never be. And
he longed at last to live again--seeing that there was no rest in the
tomb.
But the gold-born days died in golden fire; and blue nights unnumbered
filled the land with indigo-shadows; and the perfume of the summer
passed like a breath of incense--and the dead within the sepulchre
could not wholly die.
Stars in their courses peered down through the crevices of the tomb,
and twinkled, and passed on; winds of the sea shrieked to him through
the widening crannies of the tomb; birds sang above him and flew to
other lands; the bright lizards that ran noiselessly over his bed of
stone, as noiselessly departed; the spider at last ceased to repair her
web of elfin silk; years came and went with lentor inexpressible; but
for the dead there was no rest!
And after many tropical moons had waxed and waned, and the summer was
deepening in the land, filling the golden air with tender drowsiness
and passional perfume, it strangely came to pass that _She_, whose
name had been murmured by his lips when the Shadow of Death fell upon
him, came to that city of palms, and even unto the ancient place of
sepulture, and unto the tomb that was nameless.
And he knew the whisper of her raiment--knew the sweetness of her
presence--and the pallid hearts of the blossoms of a plant whose blind
roots had found food within the crevice of the tomb, changed and
flushed, and flamed incarnadine....
But She--perceiving it not--passed by; and the sound of her footstep
died away forever.