_YASMA_
Even before I began to succumb to the mysteries of Sobul, the country
was captivating me with a subtle spell. There seemed to be something
magical about the noiseless atmosphere, the untroubled blue skies and
the aloof calm circle of peaks; I came almost to feel as if this were
the world and there were no universe beyond; and my memories of the
years before were becoming remote and clouded as memories of a dream.
But the enchantment of Sobul was not merely the wizardry of its woods
and open spaces, its colors and silences and eagle heights. There
was a more potent sorcery of twinkling eyes and caressing words that
was fettering me in soft, indissoluble bonds--a sorcery that might
have proved powerful in any land on earth. And the priestess of that
sorcery was Yasma. Perhaps she did not realize the fateful part she was
playing, for was not she, as I, swept along by a dark current there
was no resisting? And yet she enacted her role remorselessly as though
assigned the lead in a cosmic drama; and, blinded herself by the unseen
powers, she could not have realized how certainly and how tragically
she was intertwining her fate with mine.
From the first I had been charmed by her open manner and her evident
lack of self-consciousness. She had been free as a child in talking
and laughing and romping with me, and I had tried to think of her
as a child, and little more,--undeniably a fascinating playmate,
but certainly not a serious companion for a thirty-three-year-old
geologist. But if I had imagined that I could dismiss her so easily,
I was merely deluding myself; the time was to come, and to come very
swiftly, when I should realize how much more than a child she was.
Possibly it is that the girls of the Ibandru come early to maturity; or
possibly they do not labor under civilized repressions, and are seldom
other than their natural selves. At all events, Yasma suffered from few
of those inhibitions which would have hampered her western sisters.
Finding something in me to interest her, she was at no pains to conceal
her interest, but would act as unhesitatingly as if she had been the
man and I the woman. At first, during my illness, I had attributed this
to mere kindness; later I had ascribed it to a natural curiosity as to
a stranger from a strange land; but there came a time when I could no
longer believe her motives purely impersonal, and when, while knowing
that she acted without design, I had inklings that she was rushing with
me toward a fire in which we might both be singed.
Why, then, did I not try to forestall our mad dash toward the flames?
Surely I, who was older and more experienced, was also somewhat wiser;
surely I might have prevented complications that she could not even
foresee. Ah, yes!--but love has queer ways, and makes a jest of men's
reason, and tosses their best intentions about like spindrift ... and
I was but subject to the frailties of human-kind. Writing at this late
date, I find it hard to say just why I did what I did (even at the
time, would I have known?); and it is impossible to explain why she
did what she did. But let me recount a few incidents; let me describe
as well as I can the growth of that strange, wild love, which even now
torments me in recollection.
I particularly remember one afternoon when we sallied off into the
woods together, on a sort of frolic that combined work and play, to
gather the wild walnuts that grew abundantly in those parts. It was
Yasma that suggested the expedition, and I had been quick to accept the
proposal, which had brought back memories of boyhood "nutting parties"
among the New Hampshire hills. As we set out through the forest on a
little inconspicuous trail, it was indeed delightful to be together;
and for the moment I was almost ready to bless the fate that had sent
me to Sobul.
What a rare companion she made that day! She would go darting and
tripping ahead of me like a playful wild thing, and then, when I had
lost sight of her amid the underbrush, she would startle me with a
cry and would come running back in loud laughter. Or else she would
enthusiastically point out the various trees crowded together in that
virgin forest--the sedate oaks, the steeple-like deodars and pines,
the alder and the ash, the juniper and wild peach; or, in places where
the undergrowth was dense, she would show me species of wild rose and
honeysuckle, of currants and hawthorn, of gooseberry and rhododendron,
as well as of a score of native herbs whose names I have forgotten.
Or her sharp eyes would spy out the birds' nests in the trees (nests
that my untrained vision would never have detected), or she would call
attention to some gray or blue or red-breasted moving thing, which
would flash into view and slip away like some shy phantom into the
twilight of the vines and shrubbery or amid the light-flecked, latticed
roof of green. Occasionally, when not too busy dancing along the trail
or playing some merry prank or pointing out the shrubs and flowers, she
would sing a snatch of some native song--sing it in an untrained voice
of a peculiar sweetness and power, which affected me strangely with its
note of joy tinged always with an indefinable and haunting melancholy.
At length, after perhaps an hour of this careless adventuring, I
noticed that the ground was beginning to rise sharply, and judged
that we were not far from the valley wall. And it was then that Yasma
paused, clapping her hands in delight and pointing to a cluster of
big, gracefully rounded trees, whose nature I recognized immediately,
although their pinnate leaves were broader than those of the black or
American walnut and their trunks were smoother and not so intensely
brown.
Beneath the trees, which were already tinged with the buff and yellow
of autumn, I drew forth two large fibrous bags supplied by Yasma, and
began to collect the nuts that lay scattered on the ground. But she,
with a disapproving gesture, halted me. Almost before I could guess
her intentions, she had sprung cat-like up one of the trees, and sat
perched acrobatically among the middle branches. Then, while I stood
gaping at her in amazement, I became aware of a storm amid the foliage.
The boughs began to shake as if in a tempest, and dead and half-dead
leaves drifted down to the accompaniment of a shower of little missiles.
Half an hour later, after Yasma had raided a second tree and I had
collected all the nuts I could carry, we sat side by side with our
backs against a tree-trunk, recovering from our exertions. I cannot say
why, but, in contrast to our previous exuberance, a silence had fallen
over us; we each seemed wrapped up in our own thoughts, almost like
strangers who have never been introduced. What was passing through her
mind I shall never know; but, for my own part, I was noticing as never
before what an extraordinarily fascinating girl Yasma was; how utterly
unspoiled, with a wild blossoming beauty that would have made most
fair women of my acquaintance seem paper roses by comparison. A warm,
romantic desire was taking possession of me, a desire such as I had not
known for years and believed I had outgrown--a desire to take Yasma in
my arms, and hold her close, and whisper tender, meaningless things.
And while I was repressing that longing and telling myself what a fool
I was, an insidious question wormed its way into my mind: what if I
were to marry this girl, and take her away with me to civilized lands,
and surround her with the graces and refinements she could never have
among these remote mountains? As one dreams of paradise and rejects
the dream, so I thought of linking Yasma's life with mine, and thrust
the idea aside. Imagine trying to civilize this wild creature, this
creature with the ways of the deer and the dove!
In the midst of my reveries, I was startled by hearing Yasma's voice.
"Strange," she was saying, in low thoughtful tones, "strange, isn't it,
how you came here to us?"
"Yes, it is strange."
"And stranger still," she continued, as much to herself as to me, "how
little we know of you now that you are here. Or, for that matter, how
little you know of us."
Then, turning to me with a sudden passionate force, she demanded, "Tell
me, tell me more about yourself! I want to know more--to know more
about you!"
Often before she had asked such a question; but never with quite the
same eagerness. On the former occasions I had replied briefly, with a
vagueness half forced upon me by my poor knowledge of the language; but
now I saw that I must answer in detail. It would not do to state, as
previously, that I came from a land beyond the wide waters, where the
cities were high as hills and the people many as flies in autumn; and
it would not suffice to explain that I had passed my days in acquiring
dark knowledge, knowledge of the rocks and of things that had happened
on earth before man came. From her earnest, almost vehement manner, it
was clear that Yasma would not be put off with generalities, but wished
to know of intimate and personal things.
Picking my way cautiously, I answered as well as I knew how. I told of
my boyhood in New England; of how I had wandered among the stony hills,
interested even then in the rocks; of how my father and mother had sent
me to a great university, where I had studied the earth's unwritten
story; of how I had been a teacher in that same university, and later a
member of the scientific staff of a famous museum, by which I had been
sent on expeditions into the far places of the world. These and similar
facts I reported to the best of my ability, finding it difficult if
not impossible to express my meaning in the simple Pushtu vocabulary.
But while Yasma listened as well as she was able, she did not appear
satisfied. I might almost say she did not even appear interested, for
often her face expressed a total lack of comprehension.
It may have been after ten or fifteen minutes that she broke in
impatiently, "That's all very well, what you are saying--all very well.
But you are not telling me about yourself--this might all be true of a
thousand men. What is there that's true only of you? What are you like
deep down? What do you think? What do you feel? Oh, I know you cannot
explain outright--but do say something to show what you are like!"
"You put a hard question," I objected, just a little embarrassed. "I
simply don't know how to answer."
And then, as a pleasant means of shifting the burden, I suggested,
"But maybe you'll show me how, Yasma. Maybe you'll show me by telling
something about yourself."
"Do you really want to know?"
"There is nothing that interests me more."
"Very well," she assented, after an instant's hesitation. "I will tell
you from the beginning."
And, with a reflective smile, she related, "I was born here in the
Valley of Sobul, seventeen summers ago. I have two brothers and three
sisters--but I won't say anything about them, because you're going to
meet them some day. When I was born, a strange prophecy was made by the
soothsayer, Hamul-Kammesh"--here she paused, and the trace of a frown
came over her face--"but I won't say anything about that, either."
At this point, of course, I interrupted and insisted on knowing about
the prophecy, which, I suspected, was connected with the prediction she
had already mentioned. But she would neither confirm my surmise nor
deny it.
"When I was five summers old," she went on, "I suffered a great
misfortune. My mother, whom I remember only as a kind spirit who came
to me long ago in a dream, was taken away by the genii of the wind and
snowstorms, and went to live with the blessed ones on the highest peak
of that range which meets the stars. Ever since that time, I have been
lonely. I have often stood looking up above our tallest mountains, up
above Yulada to the mountains of the clouds, and wondered if she might
be there, gazing down and hearing the prayers I spoke to her in my
heart. But she never seemed to see me, and never seemed to hear. And as
I grew up, my brothers and sisters would go off playing by themselves,
and I would be left to myself--but I would not always care, for I
loved to be alone with the mountains and trees. I would go chasing
butterflies all afternoon; or I would scramble up the mountainside,
picking wild fruits and berries and laughing to see the little
squirrels go jumping out of my path; or I would watch the clouds riding
through the sky, and imagine that they were fairy boats bearing me away
to strange and wonderful lands. But sometimes I would be frightened,
when I heard some big beast rustle in the bushes; and once I saw the
face of a great staring black bear, and ran down the mountain so fast
I nearly fell over a cliff; and once I almost trod on a coiling snake,
but the good spirits of the mountain were with me, because if it had
bitten me you would not see me now."
Yasma paused, a dreamy glow in her lustrous brown eyes. And before she
could continue I put a question which, I fancied, might shed a ray on
some perplexing problems.
"You are telling me only about the summers. How was it in the
wintertime, when the blizzards shrieked and the snow fell, and you were
cooped up in your log cabin?"
It seemed to me that a curious light, half happy and half melancholy,
came into her eyes as she murmured, "Ah, the winters, the
winters--until now I have never worried about them. They were always
the best time of all."
"Why the best time?"
She merely shook her head. "I cannot tell you," she answered,
regretfully. "You would not understand."
Yes, indeed, there was much that I did not understand! Even to discuss
the matter brought a cloud between us; her manner grew unnatural and
constrained, as if she had something to conceal and was anxious to
change the subject. To press her would only have ended all conversation
for the day; and so, after vexing myself fruitlessly, I abandoned the
discussion, although with a deepened sense of something sinister and
mysterious about the Ibandru, something somehow connected with the
seasons of the year.
"Come, tell me more about your past," I requested, reverting to our
original topic. "Have you always been so solitary? Have you had no
companions?"
"I have always had companions, but have always been solitary,"
she declared, as though unconscious of the paradox. "Yet what are
companions if you cannot tell them what is in your heart? What are
companions if you stand looking with them at the sunset, and you feel
its loveliness till the tears come, and they feel nothing at all? Or
what are companions if you watch the birds twittering in the treetops,
and are glad they are living and happy, while your friends wish to
mangle them with stones, and laugh at your softness and folly? I would
not have you think that we Ibandru are of the kind that would harm
little birds; only that my kinsmen and I do not have the same thoughts.
I suppose it is my own stupidity and strangeness that makes all the
difference."
"No, your own natural wisdom makes all the difference."
"I wonder," she mused, as she absently toyed with the decaying dead
leaves that coated the rich dank soil. "I have tried to be like the
others, but never could be. I would always speak about things they did
not seem to understand; and they would jest about things that were
sacred to me. I would be interested in the bee and the grasshopper,
the crawling little worm and the bird that flies like the storm-wind;
but they would not care, and would not often join me in my rambles
through the woods, for I might pause too long to make friends with
some new flower, or to watch the ants as they swarmed into one of
their wonderful earthen houses. Oh, they are marvelous, the things I
have seen! But the others have not seen them, and think me queer for
noticing them at all!"
"Never mind, Yasma," I whispered, consolingly. "I do not think you
queer. I think you clever indeed."
"Oh, I'm so glad!" she cried, clapping her little hands together
happily. "You're the first who ever said that!"
"Come, come now, certainly not the first," I denied. "Surely, some of
the others--say, your father--"
"No, not father! He's very, very good to me, of course, but he's like
all the men--imagines that the great god of the flowering spring, and
the god of the ripening fall, who put women into the world, had only
one use for them. And he thinks I'm growing old enough to--"
Abruptly Yasma halted, as though she feared to tread on unsafe ground.
Her fingers still fumbled among the dead leaves, while her averted
eyes searched the dense, dark masses of foliage as if in pursuit of
something elusive and much desired.
"But I've told you enough about myself," she resumed, hastily, in a
half whisper. "Now it's your turn to speak about yourself."
Though I would have done all I could to please her, I was still at a
loss for a reply. Embarrassed at my own speechlessness after her frank
recital, I wasted much time in telling her that I really had nothing to
tell.
"Oh, yes, you must have," she insisted, almost with a child's
assurance, as she looked up at me with candid great brown eyes. "What
friends had you before you came here? Had you any family? Were you
always alone, as I was? Or were there many people around you?"
"Yes, there were many people," I declared, hesitatingly, "though no one
who was close of kin, and no one who was such a comrade to me as you
have been, Yasma. No, never anyone at all. I did not have any lovely
young girl to help me and be kind to me and go romping into the woods
with me for nuts and berries."
I paused, and noted that Yasma sat with eyes still averted, still
gazing into the shadowy thickets as if she saw there something that
interested her immensely. And as I peered at the delicately modelled
features, the sensitive nostrils and lips and the auburn hair heaped
over the rose-tinged cheeks, I seemed to detect there a wistfulness
I had never noticed before, an indefinable melancholy that made her
appear no longer the dashing, tumultuous daughter of the wilderness,
but rather a small and pathetic creature pitifully in need of comfort
and protection. And at this thought--purely fanciful though it may
have been--my mind was flooded with sentiments such as I had not known
for years. Spontaneously, as though by instinct, my hand reached out
for hers, which did not resist, and yet did not return my pressure;
and my lips phrased sentiments which certainly my reason would have
countermanded if reason had had time to act.
"You don't know what a beautiful girl you are, Yasma," I heard myself
repeating the old commonplace of lovers. "What a rare, beautiful girl!
I have never known anyone--never--"
"Come, let us not talk of such things!" Yasma cut me short. And she
leapt to her feet with a return of her former animation. "See! the
sunset shadows are already deepening! In another hour the woods will be
cold and dark!"
Again the impetuous wild thing, she seized one of the bags of nuts
before I had had time to stop her, and went darting off before me along
the forest track, while I was left to follow slowly in a sober mood.