In the Book of the Voyage without a Harbour is written the record of the
ten years which passed before I came back again to the city of Saloma.
It was not easy to find, for I came down through the mountains, and as
I looked from a distant shoulder of the hills for the little bay full of
greenery, it was not to be seen. There was only a white town shining
far off against the brown cliffs, like a flake of mica in a cleft of
the rocks. Then I slept that night, full of care, on the hillside, and
rising before dawn, came down in the early morning toward the city.
The fields were lying parched and yellow under the sunrise, and great
cracks gaped in the earth as if it were thirsty. The trenches and
channels were still there, but there was little water in them; and
through the ragged fringes of the rusty vineyards I heard, instead of
the cheerful songs of the vintagers, the creaking of dry windlasses and
the hoarse throb of the pumps in sunken wells. The girdle of gardens had
shrunk like a wreath of withered flowers, and all the bright embroidery,
of earth was faded to a sullen gray.
At the foot of an ancient, leafless olive-tree I saw a group of people
kneeling around a newly opened well. I asked a man who was digging
beside the dusty path what this might mean. He straightened himself for
a moment, wiping the sweat from his brow, and answered, sullenly, “They
are worshipping the windlass: how else should they bring water into
their fields?” Then he fell furiously to digging again, and I passed on
into the city.
There was no sound of murmuring streams in the streets, and down the
main bed of the river I saw only a few shallow puddles, joined together
by a slowly trickling thread. Even these were fenced and guarded so that
no one might come near to them, and there were men going among to the
houses with water-skins on their shoulders, crying “Water! Water to
sell!”
The marble pools in the open square were empty; and at one of them there
was a crowd looking at a man who was being beaten with rods. A bystander
told me that the officers of the city had ordered him to be punished
because he had said that the pools and the basins and the channels were
not all of pure marble, without a flaw. “For this,” said he, “is the
evil doctrine that has come in to take away the glory of our city, and
because of this the water has failed.”
“It is a sad change,” I answered, “and doubtless they who have caused it
should suffer more than others. But can you tell me at what hour and in
what manner the people now observe the visitation of the Source?”
He looked curiously at me and replied: “I do not understand you. There
is no visitation save the inspection of the cisterns and the wells which
the syndics of the city, whom we call the Princes of Water, carry on
daily at every hour. What source is this of which you speak?”
So I went on through the street, where all the passers-by seemed in
haste and wore weary countenances, until I came to the house where I had
lodged. There was a little basin here against the wall, with a slender
stream of water still flowing into it, and a group of children standing
near with their pitchers, waiting to fill them.
The door of the house was closed; but when I knocked, it opened and a
maiden came forth. She was pale and sad in aspect, but a light of joy
dawned over the snow of her face, and I knew by the youth in her eyes
that it was Ruamie, who had walked with me through the vineyards long
ago.
With both hands she welcomed me, saying: “You are expected. Have you
found the Blue Flower?”
“Not yet,” I answered, “but something drew me back to you. I would
know how it fares with you, and I would go again with you to visit the
Source.”
At this her face grew bright, but with a tender, half-sad brightness.
“The Source!” she said. “Ah, yes, I was sure that you would remember it.
And this is the hour of the visitation. Come, let us go up together.”
Then we went alone through the busy and weary multitudes of the city
toward the mountain-path. So forsaken was it and so covered with stones
and overgrown with wire-grass that I could not have found it but for her
guidance. But as we climbed upward the air grew clearer, and more sweet,
and I questioned her of the things that had come to pass in my absence.
I asked her of the kind old man who had taken me into his house when I
came as a stranger. She said, softly, “He is dead.”
“And where are the men and women, his friends, who once thronged this
pathway? Are they also dead?”
“They also are dead.”
“But where are the younger ones who sang here so gladly as they marched
upward? Surely they, are living?”
“They have forgotten.”
“Where then are the young children whose fathers taught them this way
and bade them remember it. Have they forgotten?”
“They have forgotten.”
“But why have you alone kept the hour of visitation? Why have you not
turned back with your companions? How have you walked here solitary day
after day?”
She turned to me with a divine regard, and laying her hand gently over
mine, she said, “I remember always.”
Then I saw a few wild-flowers blossoming beside the path.
We drew near to the Source, and entered into the chamber hewn in the
rock. She kneeled and bent over the sleeping spring. She murmured again
and again the beautiful name of him who had died to find it. Her voice
repeated the song that had once been sung by many voices. Her tears fell
softly on the spring, and as they fell it seemed as if the water stirred
and rose to meet her bending face, and when she looked up it was as if
the dew had fallen on a flower.
We came very slowly down the path along the river Carita, and rested
often beside it, for surely, I thought, the rising of the spring had
sent a little more water down its dry bed, and some of it must flow on
to the city. So it was almost evening when we came back to the streets.
The people were hurrying to and fro, for it was the day before the
choosing of new Princes of Water; and there was much dispute about them,
and strife over the building of new cisterns to hold the stores of rain
which might fall in the next year. But none cared for us, as we passed
by like strangers, and we came unnoticed to the door of the house.
Then a great desire of love and sorrow moved within my breast, and I
said to Ruamie, “You are the life of the city, for you alone remember.
Its secret is in your heart, and your faithful keeping of the hours of
visitation is the only cause why the river has not failed altogether and
the curse of desolation returned. Let me stay with you, sweet soul of
all the flowers that are dead, and I will cherish you forever. Together
we will visit the Source every day; and we shall turn the people, by our
lives and by our words, back to that which they have forgotten.”
There was a smile in her eyes so deep that its meaning cannot be spoken,
as she lifted my hand to her lips, and answered,
“Not so, dear friend, for who can tell whether life or death will come
to the city, whether its people will remember at last, or whether they
will forget forever. Its lot is mine, for I was born here, and here my
life is rooted. But you are of the Children of the Unquiet Heart, whose
feet can never rest until their task of errors is completed and their
lesson of wandering is learned to the end. Until then go forth, and do
not forget that I shall remember always.”
Behind her quiet voice I heard the silent call that compels us, and
passed down the street as one walking in a dream. At the place where the
path turned aside to the ruined vineyards I looked back. The low sunset
made a circle of golden rays about her head and a strange twin blossom
of celestial blue seemed to shine in her tranquil eyes.
Since then I know not what has befallen the city, nor whether it is
still called Saloma, or once more Ablis, which is Forsaken. But if
it lives at all, I know that it is because there is one there who
remembers, and keeps the hour of visitation, and treads the steep way,
and breathes the beautiful name over the spring, and sometimes I think
that long before my seeking and journeying brings me to the Blue Flower,
it will bloom for Ruamie beside the still waters of the Source.