I have known her in summer and in winter--in summer flushed and
gorgeous like the wild rose, in winter lily-pale, or grey and haggard
as the town she lived in. She was a beautiful daughter of the Earth, a
wondrous flower. The summer night was in her dark hair, the south wind
in her eyes. Whoever looked upon her in silence knew himself in the
presence of the mystery of beauty, of the mystery of an imperious
inner beauty. It was because of this, because of some majestic spirit
manifest in her, shining through her in soul's colours, that I called
her Zenobia, naming her after that Blythedale Zenobia who always wore
the rich hot-house flower in her bosom. And it was to me as if my
Zenobia wore that flower there also, and in silence, a new flower each
day, wondrous and rich. Never could she be seen without that flower
there, and it was as if on that flower depended her very life. Should
the flower at any time be wanting, then all were wanting.
I remember her as she was one June when we gathered eglantine
together, and the richest and deepest of all reds in roses. In the
midsummer afternoons we plucked our garlands and brought them home at
sunset time. Such afternoons they were, tempting all living things
into the symphony of glory, such afternoons of splendour that now,
looking back, it seems to be the very acme of their glory that we also
were to be found there in those woods with all the rest. We came,
soft stepping into the scene, and Nature, which moves continuously,
harmoniously, did in the same moment build a throne and take us in it.
At once the life from us flowed out, and the life about flowed in.
Surely these were days of large orchestras, and of wonderful and
complex melodies. Zenobia moved like a queen over the scene, her rich
garments sweeping over the soft grass, her graceful arms swinging as
with secret blessings. All the living things of the day seemed eager
to be her pages; she was indeed a queen. The world needed her and the
world went well because of her. The birds sang, they had not sung so
sweetly but for her; the sun shone, it had not shone so brightly but
for her; the roses stood on tiptoe on the bushes asking to be picked
by her; the very air played lovingly about her, stealing and giving
freshness.
The memory of all this comes out to me with a rush whenever I open
a book of poems at a certain page, and with it comes the odour of
sweet-brier and honeysuckle. It was in a June, one of the past Junes
when we also were June glory, beautiful, full-blossoming, and not more
self-conscious than the brier itself. I think now of the greens and
crimsons, the blaze of holy living colour in which we were able to
exist and breathe....The afternoon passed, the evening came. Light
unfolded silken banners of crimson floated down over the sky; crimson
flower torches danced upwards from Zenobia's hands, living rose glowed
from out her cheeks. About us and around floated lambent reds and
blues and greens. The deep lake looked into her eyes, the trees nodded
to her, birds flew over her, the first stars peeped at her.
Mysterious, breathless, was the summer night. An influence of the time
seemed to press upon us; something exhaled from the mystery of flowers
drew sleep down upon us. Twilight lay upon the eyebrows of the girl,
and the cloud of her dark hair nodded over it like the oncoming night.
We sat down upon a grass mound. We ourselves, Nature around us, all
things of the day, seemed under a spell. Sleep lay about the roses,
the bushes mused inwardly, the honeysuckle exhaled enchantment and was
itself enchanted. Then the things of the night came. The myriad midges
performed their rites over the blackthorn and the oak, and blackthorn
and oak looked as if changed into stone. The mice and the shrews
crept safely over the toes of the blackberry bushes, the rabbits came
tumbling along through banks of inanimate grass. And fat night-moths
sucked honey from half-conscious flowers, and the same moths whirred
duskily round our gathered roses or darted daringly into our faces. We
were like the flowers and the grass and the blackberry and blackthorn.
The night which had overtaken them and put them to sleep had settled
upon us also, and the things of the night came out securely at our
feet. For a moment, a sport of habit had betrayed us to the old Eden
habits, had taken us a step into a forgotten harmony. But below the
surface the old fought secretly with the new, that old that seems so
much the newest of the new, that new that really is so old and
stale. The new must have won, and in me first, for I rose suddenly,
brusquely, as if somehow I felt I had unawares been acting
unaccountably foolishly. I looked at my companion; the mood was still
upon her, and I believe she might easily have slumbered on into the
night, but as she saw me rise, the new in her gained reinforcement,
and she too rose in a sort of mild surprise. Now I think I might have
left her there to awaken late in the night, a new Titania with the
moonbeams coming through the forest branches to her.
I awakened her. I think she has often been awakened since then, but
indeed it is seldom now that she is allowed to slip into such slumber.
We walked home and I said some poems on the way; she heard. I think
she heard in the same way as a flower feels the touch of a bee. No
words had she, no poetry of words to give back. She had not awakened
to articulateness. She had no thoughts; she breathed out beauty. She
understood no thoughts; she breathed in beauty from around.
* * * * *
This was Zenobia, this was her aspect when she was taken, when the
change came over her life.
That marvellous mechanism, the modern state, with its mysterious
springs and subterranean attractions and exigencies, drew her in to
itself. The modern state, whose every agent is called Necessity, had
appealed to her. And she had been taken. She settled on the outskirts
of a city and half her life was spent under a canopy of smoke, whilst
in the other half she courted morning and evening twilights. In the
first June of this time, in afternoons and evenings, we had lived
together among the roses, and she had stood at the zenith of her
glory. But with the coming on of autumn the roses withered, and
something of the old dreaminess left her eyes. A little melancholy
settled upon her, and she discovered she was lonely. But the town had
seen her, and henceforth the town took charge of her. It sent its
angels to her. One might wonder what the town used her for, this
inarticulate one--it made her a teacher because of her good memory.
Then it regarded her as "good material." It sent its angels, those
voluntary servants of the state, the acquaintances who call themselves
friends. These at first approved of her, always misunderstood her, and
at length despised her. They misunderstood her, because a person truly
inarticulate was incomprehensible to them. Her naïveté they mistook
for insolence, her dreaminess for disrespect. They confused her memory
with her understanding. They gave her books to read, brought her to
lectures, sat her at the theatre, took her to hear sermons, prayed
with her and drank with her the holy wine. And some would say,
"Isn't she coming on?" or "Isn't she developing?" and others, more
perceiving, would say, "Well, even if she isn't getting anything from
it, at least she's seeing life"; while others, more perceiving still,
gave her up as past hope. "She has no brains," they said. Others,
still more perceiving, said she had no soul, no love; she cared for no
one, understood nothing. She, for her part, went on almost as ever,
and remained next to inarticulate. Only now and again the hubbub of
battle in the schoolroom would awaken her to some sort of conscious
exasperation. She would appeal to her class, staring at them with eyes
from which all gentleness and affection had merged into astonishment
and indignation. For the rest, lack of life, lack of sun, lack of life
influence told upon her beauty. She did not understand the influence
of the ill-constituted around her, and did not understand the pain
which now and again thrilled through her being, provoking sighs and
word-sighs. Then those friend-acquaintances, ever on the alert for an
expression of real meaning, interpreted her sighs and longings for
week-ends in the country.
Verily it is true, one cannot serve God and mammon. There was no
health forthcoming through this compromise with life. She merely felt
more pain. She continued her work in the town, and was enrolled and
fixed in many little circles where little wheels moved greater wheels
in the great state-machine. Ostensibly, always now, whatever new she
did was a step toward saving her soul. I met her one January night;
she was going to a tea-meeting in connection with a literary society.
Very grey her face looked. Many of the old beautiful curves were
gone, and mysteries about her dimples and black hair-clusters seemed
departed irrevocably. Still much in her slept safe, untouched as ever,
and, as ever, she was without thoughts. Her memory suggested what she
should say to me. "It will be interesting," she remembered. I helped
her off with coat and furs. She was dressed wonderfully. The gown she
wore--of deep cinnamon and gold--was still the dress of Zenobia, and
at her bosom the strange flower exhaled its mystery. I went in with
her to the hot room. She was evidently a queen here, as in the
forest glades. And her pale face lit up as she moved about among the
"little-worldlings" and exchanged small-talk and cakes and tea. She
was evidently in some way responsible for the entertainment, for the
chairman said "they all owed her so much." I watched her face, it
showed no sign of unusual gratification; had he slighted her, I am
sure she would have listened as equably. What a mask her face was! The
look of graciousness was permanent, and probably only to me did she
betray her continuous sleepiness and lack of interest in the whole
affair. Members propounded stupendously solemn questions about the
"salvation of man," the "state of progress," the mystic meaning of
passages of the Bible, and the like; and I watched her draw on her
memory for answers. She was never at a loss, and her interlocutors
went away, and named their little child-thoughts after her.
I took her away at last and whispered some things in her ears, and
showed her what could be seen of moon and stars from the narrow
street, and something of the old summer feeling came over us. How the
old time sang sorrowfully back, plaintively, piteously. Our steps
sounded along some silent streets, the doors of the little houses were
shut and dark. They might have been the under doors of tombs. Silently
we walked along together, and life sang its little song to us from the
depths of its prison. It sounded like the voice of a lover now lost
for ever, one worth more beyond compare than any that could come
after.
There is no going back. I saw her to her little home and touched her
tenderly at Goodbye.
She went in. The door closed and I was left standing alone in front
of the closed door, and there was none around but myself. Then I was
aware of a gust in the night-breeze blowing up for rain. Time had
changed. Something had been taken from the future and something had
been added to the past. The spiral gusts lifted the unseen litter of
the street, and with them the harpies rose in my breast. And words
impetuous would have burst out like the torrents of rain which the
dark sky threatened.
The torrent came.
A girl like this simply grows like a flower on a heath, blossoms,
fades, withers, and is lost. No more than that. I scarcely tell what
I want to say. Oh, how strongly I would whisper it into the inmost
heart! Life is not thoughts, is not calm, is not sights, is not
reading or music, is not the refinement of the senses,--Life is--life.
This is the great secret. This is the original truth, and if we had
never begun to think, we should never have lost our instinctive
knowledge. In one place flowers rot and die; in another, bloom and
live. The truth is that in this city they rot and die. This is not a
suitable place for a strong life; men and women here are too close
together, there is not enough room for them, they just spring up
thinly and miserably, and can reach no maturity, and therefore wither
away. All around are the ill-constituted, the decaying, the dying.
What chance had fresh life coming into the tainted air of this
stricken city--this city where provision is made only for the
unhealthy? For here, because something is the matter, every one has
begun conscience-dissecting--thinking--and a rumour has got abroad
that we live to get thoughts of God. And because thoughts of God
are novel and comforting, they have been raised up as the great
desideratum. And the state of society responsible for the production
of these thoughts is considered blessed. The work of intensifying the
characteristics of that society is thought blessed, and because in
ease we think not, we prefer to live in disease. And the progress of
disease we call Progress. So Progress and Thought are substituted for
Life.
There _is_ a purpose of God in this city, but there is as much purpose
in the desert. There is no astonishingly great purpose. The disease
will work itself out. And I know God's whole truth to man was revealed
long since, and any one of calm soul may know it. The hope of learning
the purpose through the ages, the following of the gleam, is the
preoccupation of the insane.
What do all these people and this black city want to make of _her_?
She, and ten thousand like her, need life. Life, not thought, or
progress, just the same old human life that has always been going on.
The rain was pouring heavily and I took shelter. I felt calmer; I had
unpacked myself of words. Rather mournfully I now looked out into the
night, and, as it were, ceased to speak to it, and became a listener.
A song of sorrow came from the city, the wailing of mothers
uncomforted, of children orphaned, uncared for, of forsaken ones. I
heard again the old reproach of the children sitting in the market.
"Here surely," I said, "where so many are gathered together, there
is more solitude and lonely grief than in all the wide places of the
earth!" Voices came up to me from thousands in a city where thousands
of hands were uplifted to take a cup of comfort that cannot be
vouchsafed.
Is there a way out for _her_? Is there a way out for them? "For her
perhaps, for them not," something whispered within me inexorably. "And
Death?" The wind caught up the whisper "death" caressingly and took
it away from me over the city, and wove it in and out through all the
streets and all the dark lanes, and about the little chimneys, and the
windows.
Is there a way out for her?--Perhaps. There are some beings so full of
life that even the glutton Death must disgorge them.