As I re-entered the cave with my burden Nuflo sat up and stared at me
with a frightened look in his eyes. Throwing my cloak down, I placed the
girl on it and briefly related what had happened.
He drew near to examine her; then placed his hand on her heart.
“Dead!--she is dead!” he exclaimed.
My own anxiety changed to an irrational anger at his words. “Old fool!
She has only fainted,” I returned. “Get me some water, quick.”
But the water failed to restore her, and my anxiety deepened as I gazed
on that white, still face. Oh, why had I told her that sad tragedy I had
imagined with so little preparation? Alas! I had succeeded too well in
my purpose, killing her vain hope and her at the same moment.
The old man, still bending over her, spoke again. “No, I will not
believe that she is dead yet; but, sir, if not dead, then she is dying.”
I could have struck him down for his words. “She will die in my arms,
then,” I exclaimed, thrusting him roughly aside, and lifting her up with
the cloak beneath her.
And while I held her thus, her head resting on my arm, and gazed with
unutterable anguish into her strangely white face, insanely praying to
Heaven to restore her to me, Nuflo fell on his knees before her, and
with bowed head, and hands clasped in supplication, began to speak.
“Rima! Grandchild!” he prayed, his quivering voice betraying his
agitation. “Do not die just yet: you must not die--not wholly die--until
you have heard what I have to say to you. I do not ask you to answer
in words--you are past that, and I am not unreasonable. Only, when I
finish, make some sign--a sigh, a movement of the eyelid, a twitch of
the lips, even in the small corners of the mouth; nothing more than
that, just to show that you have heard, and I shall be satisfied.
Remember all the years that I have been your protector, and this long
journey that I have taken on your account; also all that I did for
your sainted mother before she died at Voa, to become one of the most
important of those who surround the Queen of Heaven, and who, when they
wish for any favour, have only to say half a word to get it. And do not
cast in oblivion that at the last I obeyed your wish and brought you
safely to Riolama. It is true that in some small things I deceived you;
but that must not weigh with you, because it is a small matter and not
worthy of mention when you consider the claims I have on you. In your
hands, Rima, I leave everything, relying on the promise you made me, and
on my services. Only one word of caution remains to be added. Do not let
the magnificence of the place you are now about to enter, the new sights
and colours, and the noise of shouting, and musical instruments and
blowing of trumpets, put these things out of your head. Nor must you
begin to think meanly of yourself and be abashed when you find yourself
surrounded by saints and angels; for you are not less than they,
although it may not seem so at first when you see them in their bright
clothes, which, they say, shine like the sun. I cannot ask you to tie
a string round your finger; I can only trust to your memory, which was
always good, even about the smallest things; and when you are asked, as
no doubt you will be, to express a wish, remember before everything to
speak of your grandfather, and his claims on you, also on your angelic
mother, to whom you will present my humble remembrances.”
During this petition, which in other circumstances would have moved me
to laughter but now only irritated me, a subtle change seemed to come
to the apparently lifeless girl to make me hope. The small hand in mine
felt not so icy cold, and though no faintest colour had come to the
face, its pallor had lost something of its deathly waxen appearance; and
now the compressed lips had relaxed a little and seemed ready to part.
I laid my finger-tips on her heart and felt, or imagined that I felt,
a faint fluttering; and at last I became convinced that her heart was
really beating.
I turned my eyes on the old man, still bending forward, intently
watching for the sign he had asked her to make. My anger and disgust
at his gross earthy egoism had vanished. “Let us thank God, old man,”
I said, the tears of joy half choking my utterance. “She lives--she is
recovering from her fit.”
He drew back, and on his knees, with bowed head, murmured a prayer of
thanks to Heaven.
Together we continued watching her face for half an hour longer, I
still holding her in my arms, which could never grow weary of that sweet
burden, waiting for other, surer signs of returning life; and she seemed
now like one that had fallen into a profound, death-like sleep which
must end in death. Yet when I remembered her face as it had looked an
hour ago, I was confirmed in the belief that the progress to recovery,
so strangely slow, was yet sure. So slow, so gradual was this passing
from death to life that we had hardly ceased to fear when we noticed
that the lips were parted, or almost parted, that they were no longer
white, and that under her pale, transparent skin a faint, bluish-rosy
colour was now visible. And at length, seeing that all danger was past
and recovery so slow, old Nuflo withdrew once more to the fireside and,
stretching himself out on the sandy floor, soon fell into a deep sleep.
If he had not been lying there before me in the strong light of the
glowing embers and dancing flames, I could not have felt more alone with
Rima--alone amid those remote mountains, in that secret cavern, with
lights and shadows dancing on its grey vault. In that profound silence
and solitude the mysterious loveliness of the still face I continued
to gaze on, its appearance of life without consciousness, produced a
strange feeling in me, hard, perhaps impossible, to describe.
Once, when clambering among the rough rocks, overgrown with forest,
among the Queneveta mountains, I came on a single white flower which was
new to me, which I have never seen since. After I had looked long at it,
and passed on, the image of that perfect flower remained so persistently
in my mind that on the following day I went again, in the hope of seeing
it still untouched by decay. There was no change; and on this occasion
I spent a much longer time looking at it, admiring the marvellous
beauty of its form, which seemed so greatly to exceed that of all
other flowers. It had thick petals, and at first gave me the idea of an
artificial flower, cut by a divinely inspired artist from some unknown
precious stone, of the size of a large orange and whiter than milk, and
yet, in spite of its opacity, with a crystalline lustre on the surface.
Next day I went again, scarcely hoping to find it still unwithered; it
was fresh as if only just opened; and after that I went often, sometimes
at intervals of several days, and still no faintest sign of any change,
the clear, exquisite lines still undimmed, the purity and lustre as
I had first seen it. Why, I often asked, does not this mystic forest
flower fade and perish like others? That first impression of its
artificial appearance had soon left me; it was, indeed, a flower, and,
like other flowers, had life and growth, only with that transcendent
beauty it had a different kind of life. Unconscious, but higher; perhaps
immortal. Thus it would continue to bloom when I had looked my last
on it; wind and rain and sunlight would never stain, never tinge, its
sacred purity; the savage Indian, though he sees little to admire in a
flower, yet seeing this one would veil his face and turn back; even
the browsing beast crashing his way through the forest, struck with
its strange glory, would swerve aside and pass on without harming it.
Afterwards I heard from some Indians to whom I described it that
the flower I had discovered was called Hata; also that they had a
superstition concerning it--a strange belief. They said that only one
Hata flower existed in the world; that it bloomed in one spot for the
space of a moon; that on the disappearance of the moon in the sky the
Hata disappeared from its place, only to reappear blooming in some
other spot, sometimes in some distant forest. And they also said that
whosoever discovered the Hata flower in the forest would overcome all
his enemies and obtain all his desires, and finally outlive other men
by many years. But, as I have said, all this I heard afterwards, and my
half-superstitious feeling for the flower had grown up independently
in my own mind. A feeling like that was in me while I gazed on the face
that had no motion, no consciousness in it, and yet had life, a life of
so high a kind as to match with its pure, surpassing loveliness. I could
almost believe that, like the forest flower, in this state and aspect it
would endure for ever; endure and perhaps give of its own immortality to
everything around it--to me, holding her in my arms and gazing fixedly
on the pale face framed in its cloud of dark, silken hair; to the
leaping flames that threw changing lights on the dim stony wall of
rock; to old Nuflo and his two yellow dogs stretched out on the floor in
eternal, unawakening sleep.
This feeling took such firm possession of my mind that it kept me for
a time as motionless as the form I held in my arms. I was only released
from its power by noting still further changes in the face I watched,
a more distinct advance towards conscious life. The faint colour,
which had scarcely been more than a suspicion of colour, had deepened
perceptibly; the lids were lifted so as to show a gleam of the crystal
orbs beneath; the lips, too, were slightly parted.
And, at last, bending lower down to feel her breath, the beauty and
sweetness of those lips could no longer be resisted, and I touched them
with mine. Having once tasted their sweetness and fragrance, it was
impossible to keep from touching them again and again. She was not
conscious--how could she be and not shrink from my caress? Yet there
was a suspicion in my mind, and drawing back I gazed into her face once
more. A strange new radiance had overspread it. Or was this only an
illusive colour thrown on her skin by the red firelight? I shaded her
face with my open hand, and saw that her pallor had really gone, that
the rosy flame on her cheeks was part of her life. Her lustrous eyes,
half open, were gazing into mine. Oh, surely consciousness had returned
to her! Had she been sensible of those stolen kisses? Would she now
shrink from another caress? Trembling, I bent down and touched her lips
again, lightly, but lingeringly, and then again, and when I drew back
and looked at her face the rosy flame was brighter, and the eyes,
more open still, were looking into mine. And gazing with those open,
conscious eyes, it seemed to me that at last, at last, the shadow that
had rested between us had vanished, that we were united in perfect love
and confidence, and that speech was superfluous. And when I spoke, it
was not without doubt and hesitation: our bliss in those silent moments
had been so complete, what could speaking do but make it less!
“My love, my life, my sweet Rima, I know that you will understand me
now as you did not before, on that dark night--do you remember it,
Rima?--when I held you clasped to my breast in the wood. How it pierced
my heart with pain to speak plainly to you as I did on the mountain
tonight--to kill the hope that had sustained and brought you so far from
home! But now that anguish is over; the shadow has gone out of those
beautiful eyes that are looking at me. It is because loving me, knowing
now what love is, knowing, too, how much I love you, that you no longer
need to speak to any other living being of such things? To tell it, to
show it, to me is now enough--is it not so, Rima? How strange it seemed,
at first, when you shrank in fear from me! But, afterwards, when you
prayed aloud to your mother, opening all the secrets of your heart, I
understood it. In that lonely, isolated life in the wood you had heard
nothing of love, of its power over the heart, its infinite sweetness;
when it came to you at last it was a new, inexplicable thing, and filled
you with misgivings and tumultuous thoughts, so that you feared it and
hid yourself from its cause. Such tremors would be felt if it had always
been night, with no light except that of the stars and the pale moon, as
we saw it a little while ago on the mountain; and, at last, day dawned,
and a strange, unheard-of rose and purple flame kindled in the eastern
sky, foretelling the coming sun. It would seem beautiful beyond anything
that night had shown to you, yet you would tremble and your heart beat
fast at that strange sight; you would wish to fly to those who might be
able to tell you its meaning, and whether the sweet things it prophesied
would ever really come. That is why you wished to find your people, and
came to Riolama to seek them; and when you knew--when I cruelly told
you--that they would never be found, then you imagined that that strange
feeling in your heart must remain a secret for ever, and you could
not endure the thought of your loneliness. If you had not fainted so
quickly, then I should have told you what I must tell you now. They are
lost, Rima--your people--but I am with you, and know what you feel, even
if you have no words to tell it. But what need of words? It shines in
your eyes, it burns like a flame in your face; I can feel it in your
hands. Do you not also see it in my face--all that I feel for you, the
love that makes me happy? For this is love, Rima, the flower and the
melody of life, the sweetest thing, the sweet miracle that makes our two
souls one.”
Still resting in my arms, as if glad to rest there, still gazing into
my face, it was clear to me that she understood my every word. And then,
with no trace of doubt or fear left, I stooped again, until my lips were
on hers; and when I drew back once more, hardly knowing which bliss was
greatest--kissing her delicate mouth or gazing into her face--she all at
once put her arms about my neck and drew herself up until she sat on my
knee.
“Abel--shall I call you Abel now--and always?” she spoke, still with
her arms round my neck. “Ah, why did you let me come to Riolama? I would
come! I made him come--old grandfather, sleeping there: he does not
count, but you--you! After you had heard my story, and knew that it was
all for nothing! And all I wished to know was there--in you. Oh, how
sweet it is! But a little while ago, what pain! When I stood on the
mountain when you talked to me, and I knew that you knew best, and tried
and tried not to know. At last I could try no more; they were all dead
like mother; I had chased the false water on the savannah. ‘Oh, let me
die too,’ I said, for I could not bear the pain. And afterwards, here in
the cave, I was like one asleep, and when I woke I did not really wake.
It was like morning with the light teasing me to open my eyes and look
at it. Not yet, dear light; a little while longer, it is so sweet to lie
still. But it would not leave me, and stayed teasing me still, like a
small shining green fly; until, because it teased me so, I opened my
lids just a little. It was not morning, but the firelight, and I was in
your arms, not in my little bed. Your eyes looking, looking into mine.
But I could see yours better. I remembered everything then, how you once
asked me to look into your eyes. I remembered so many things--oh, so
many!”
“How many things did you remember, Rima?”
“Listen, Abel, do you ever lie on the dry moss and look straight up into
a tree and count a thousand leaves?”
“No, sweetest, that could not be done, it is so many to count. Do you
know how many a thousand are?”
“Oh, do I not! When a humming-bird flies close to my face and stops
still in the air, humming like a bee, and then is gone, in that short
time I can count a hundred small round bright feathers on its throat.
That is only a hundred; a thousand are more, ten times. Looking up I
count a thousand leaves; then stop counting, because there are thousands
more behind the first, and thousands more, crowded together so that I
cannot count them. Lying in your arms, looking up into your face, it was
like that; I could not count the things I remembered. In the wood, when
you were there, and before; and long, long ago at Voa, when I was a
child with mother.”
“Tell me some of the things you remembered, Rima.”
“Yes, one--only one now. When I was a child at Voa mother was very
lame--you know that. Whenever we went out, away from the houses, into
the forest, walking slowly, slowly, she would sit under a tree while I
ran about playing. And every time I came back to her I would find her so
pale, so sad, crying--crying. That was when I would hide and come softly
back so that she would not hear me coming. ‘Oh, mother, why are you
crying? Does your lame foot hurt you?’ And one day she took me in her
arms and told me truly why she cried.”
She ceased speaking, but looked at me with a strange new light coming
into her eyes.
“Why did she cry, my love?”
“Oh, Abel, can you understand--now--at last!” And putting her lips
close to my ear, she began to murmur soft, melodious sounds that told
me nothing. Then drawing back her head, she looked again at me, her eyes
glistening with tears, her lips half parted with a smile, tender and
wistful.
Ah, poor child! in spite of all that had been said, all that had
happened, she had returned to the old delusion that I must understand
her speech. I could only return her look, sorrowfully and in silence.
Her face became clouded with disappointment, then she spoke again with
something of pleading in her tone. “Look, we are not now apart, I hiding
in the wood, you seeking, but together, saying the same things. In
your language--yours and now mine. But before you came I knew nothing,
nothing, for there was only grandfather to talk to. A few words each
day, the same words. If yours is mine, mine must be yours. Oh, do you
not know that mine is better?”
“Yes, better; but alas! Rima, I can never hope to understand your sweet
speech, much less to speak it. The bird that only chirps and twitters
can never sing like the organ-bird.”
Crying, she hid her face against my neck, murmuring sadly between her
sobs: “Never--never!”
How strange it seemed, in that moment of joy, such a passion of tears,
such despondent words!
For some minutes I preserved a sorrowful silence, realizing for the
first time, so far as it was possible to realize such a thing, what my
inability to understand her secret language meant to her--that finer
language in which alone her swift thoughts and vivid emotions could be
expressed. Easily and well as she seemed able to declare herself in my
tongue, I could well imagine that to her it would seem like the merest
stammering. As she had said to me once when I asked her to speak in
Spanish, “That is not speaking.” And so long as she could not commune
with me in that better language, which reflected her mind, there would
not be that perfect union of soul she so passionately desired.
By and by, as she grew calmer, I sought to say something that would be
consoling to both of us. “Sweetest Rima,” I spoke, “it is so sad that
I can never hope to talk with you in your way; but a greater love than
this that is ours we could never feel, and love will make us happy,
unutterably happy, in spite of that one sadness. And perhaps, after a
while, you will be able to say all you wish in my language, which is
also yours, as you said some time ago. When we are back again in the
beloved wood, and talk once more under that tree where we first talked,
and under the old mora, where you hid yourself and threw down leaves
on me, and where you caught the little spider to show me how you made
yourself a dress, you shall speak to me in your own sweet tongue, and
then try to say the same things in mine.... And in the end, perhaps, you
will find that it is not so impossible as you think.”
She looked at me, smiling again through her tears, and shook her head a
little.
“Remember what I have heard, that before your mother died you were able
to tell Nuflo and the priest what her wish was. Can you not, in the same
way, tell me why she cried?”
“I can tell you, but it will not be telling you.”
“I understand. You can tell the bare facts. I can imagine something
more, and the rest I must lose. Tell me, Rima.”
Her face became troubled; she glanced away and let her eyes wander round
the dim, firelit cavern; then they returned to mine once more.
“Look,” she said, “grandfather lying asleep by the fire. So far away
from us--oh, so far! But if we were to go out from the cave, and on and
on to the great mountains where the city of the sun is, and stood there
at last in the midst of great crowds of people, all looking at us,
talking to us, it would be just the same. They would be like the trees
and rocks and animals--so far! Not with us nor we with them. But we are
everywhere alone together, apart--we two. It is love; I know it now, but
I did not know it before because I had forgotten what she told me. Do
you think I can tell you what she said when I asked her why she cried?
Oh no! Only this, she and another were like one, always, apart from
the others. Then something came--something came! O Abel, was that the
something you told me about on the mountain? And the other was lost for
ever, and she was alone in the forests and mountains of the world. Oh,
why do we cry for what is lost? Why do we not quickly forget it and feel
glad again? Now only do I know what you felt, O sweet mother, when you
sat still and cried, while I ran about and played and laughed! O poor
mother! Oh, what pain!” And hiding her face against my neck, she sobbed
once more.
To my eyes also love and sympathy brought the tears; but in a little
while the fond, comforting words I spoke and my caresses recalled her
from that sad past to the present; then, lying back as at first,
her head resting on my folded cloak, her body partly supported by my
encircling arm and partly by the rock we were leaning against,
her half-closed eyes turned to mine expressed a tender assured
happiness--the chastened gladness of sunshine after rain; a soft
delicious languor that was partly passionate with the passion
etherealized.
“Tell me, Rima,” I said, bending down to her, “in all those troubled
days with me in the woods had you no happy moments? Did not something in
your heart tell you that it was sweet to love, even before you knew what
love meant?”
“Yes; and once--O Abel, do you remember that night, after returning from
Ytaioa, when you sat so late talking by the fire--I in the shadow, never
stirring, listening, listening; you by the fire with the light on your
face, saying so many strange things? I was happy then--oh, how happy! It
was black night and raining, and I a plant growing in the dark, feeling
the sweet raindrops falling, falling on my leaves. Oh, it will be
morning by and by and the sun will shine on my wet leaves; and that
made me glad till I trembled with happiness. Then suddenly the lightning
would come, so bright, and I would tremble with fear, and wish that
it would be dark again. That was when you looked at me sitting in the
shadow, and I could not take my eyes away quickly and could not meet
yours, so that I trembled with fear.”
“And now there is no fear--no shadow; now you are perfectly happy?”
“Oh, so happy! If the way back to the wood was longer, ten times, and
if the great mountains, white with snow on their tops, were between, and
the great dark forest, and rivers wider than Orinoco, still I would go
alone without fear, because you would come after me, to join me in the
wood, to be with me at last and always.”
“But I should not let you go alone, Rima--your lonely days are over
now.”
She opened her eyes wider and looked earnestly into my face. “I must go
back alone, Abel,” she said. “Before day comes I must leave you. Rest
here, with grandfather, for a few days and nights, then follow me.”
I heard her with astonishment. “It must not be, Rima,” I cried. “What,
let you leave me--now you are mine--to go all that distance, through all
that wild country where you might lose yourself and perish alone? Oh, do
not think of it!”
She listened, regarding me with some slight trouble in her eyes, but
smiling a little at the same time. Her small hand moved up my arm and
caressed my cheek; then she drew my face down to hers until our lips
met. But when I looked at her eyes again, I saw that she had not
consented to my wish. “Do I not know all the way now,” she spoke, “all
the mountains, rivers, forests--how should I lose myself? And I must
return quickly, not step by step, walking--resting, resting--walking,
stopping to cook and eat, stopping to gather firewood, to make a
shelter--so many things! Oh, I shall be back in half the time; and I
have so much to do.”
“What can you have to do, love?--everything can be done when we are in
the wood together.”
A bright smile with a touch of mockery in it flitted over her face as
she replied: “Oh, must I tell you that there are things you cannot do?
Look, Abel,” and she touched the slight garment she wore, thinner now
than at first, and dulled by long exposure to sun and wind and rain.
I could not command her, and seemed powerless to persuade her; but I had
not done yet, and proceeded to use every argument I could find to bring
her round to my view; and when I finished she put her arms around my
neck and drew herself up once more. “O Abel, how happy I shall be!” she
said, taking no notice of all I had said. “Think of me alone, days and
days, in the wood, waiting for you, working all the time; saying: ‘Come
quickly, Abel; come slow, Abel. O Abel, how long you are! Oh, do not
come until my work is finished!’ And when it is finished and you arrive
you shall find me, but not at once. First you will seek for me in the
house, then in the wood, calling: ‘Rima! Rima!’ And she will be there,
listening, hid in the trees, wishing to be in your arms, wishing for
your lips--oh, so glad, yet fearing to show herself. Do you know why?
He told you--did he not?--that when he first saw her she was standing
before him all in white--a dress that was like snow on the mountain-tops
when the sun is setting and gives it rose and purple colour. I shall
be like that, hidden among the trees, saying: ‘Am I different--not like
Rima? Will he know me--will he love me just the same?’ Oh, do I not
know that you will be glad, and love me, and call me beautiful? Listen!
Listen!” she suddenly exclaimed, lifting her face.
Among the bushes not far from the cave’s mouth a small bird had broken
out in song, a clear, tender melody soon taken up by other birds further
away.
“It will soon be morning,” she said, and then clasped her arms about me
once more and held me in a long, passionate embrace; then slipping away
from my arms and with one swift glance at the sleeping old man, passed
out of the cave.
For a few moments I remained sitting, not yet realizing that she had
left me, so suddenly and swiftly had she passed from my arms and my
sight; then, recovering my faculties, I started up and rushed out in
hopes of overtaking her.
It was not yet dawn, but there was still some light from the full
moon, now somewhere behind the mountains. Running to the verge of the
bushgrown plateau, I explored the rocky slope beneath without seeing her
form, and then called: “Rima! Rima!”
A soft, warbling sound, uttered by no bird, came up from the shadowy
bushes far below; and in that direction I ran on; then pausing, called
again. The sweet sound was repeated once more, but much lower down now,
and so faintly that I scarcely heard it. And when I went on further
and called again and again, there was no reply, and I knew that she had
indeed gone on that long journey alone.