_Hero finds Nuova in the Garden_
Saggia had joined a group of foragers at work, among whom were Uno and
Tre. These two bees at first moved away a little as Saggia came over,
but in their foraging work they gradually came close to her again.
Pretty soon Uno, after glancing toward Beffa sitting quietly by the
dandelion, spoke to Saggia.
"The garden is not a place for jesting," she said sharply; "nor for
listening to jesting. Beffa is not a good example for bees who work." As
she said this she looked significantly at Saggia, and several of the
other bees, overhearing her, smiled maliciously.
Saggia said nothing at first, but busied herself at her flowers. As she
changed, however, from one flower to another one near by, she said
quietly: "Beffa works harder than most of us."
"Do you call jesting work?" asked Tre indignantly.
"I call Beffa's work hard work--for Beffa; and useful work," Saggia
replied.
"What other hive has a jester, a bee that does no work, that just hops
and sings?" demanded Uno angrily.
"We are more fortunate than other hives," said Saggia evenly. "We have a
bee who has time to think, and a clever tongue to say what he thinks."
No one spoke for a moment, then Tre said mechanically, as if repeating
by rote: "Bees ought not to think; and if they do they ought to keep
their thoughts to themselves." Then she added maliciously: "I think I
learned that from you, Saggia."
The other bees turned and smiled.
"One lives and learns," said Saggia, a little confused.
"Oh, worse yet!" exclaimed Uno. "'Bees do not learn: they know.' That
also is from Saggia," she said, turning to the other bees.
They all smiled again enjoying Saggia's discomfiture.
"Well," said Saggia desperately, "bees do know most things,
but--not--everything."
Just then Beffa came hopping toward them hurriedly. He was singing
loudly, too, and was evidently much excited about something. As he
reached the group of foraging bees he did not stop, but kept hopping
right on by them singing loudly as he passed:
"Hoptoad squats beneath the flower;
Waits that pleasant fateful hour
When honey-bee on food intent
Comes within his leafy tent;
Open! Shut! Poor bee, good-bye;
An ugly, horrid way to die!"
As the bees heard this, they all became much frightened and excited,
skipping about and peering in all directions.
"The Toad!" they cried. "Where? There! I don't see him! Where, Beffa?
Beffa, where?"
Beffa's movements plainly indicated the direction of danger to be toward
where he had come from, and the way of safety correspondingly in the
direction of his hopping. All the bees, therefore, with much buzzing and
jumping about, moved along with the hopping and singing Beffa. Only
Saggia seemed a little slow to take alarm or to follow him closely. She
watched him curiously, and kept turning to look in the direction from
which he had come. She remembered that Nuova was back there somewhere,
and she could not believe that Beffa would leave her in danger in order
to warn ever so many other bees. Saggia knew well poor Beffa's hopeless
love for Nuova.
As a matter of fact, Beffa had seen not a toad, but something else,
which, under the circumstances of bee life and tradition, was much more
extraordinary, and he had come hopping over to lead off the other bees
that they might not also see it.
What he had seen was something that his keen wits had told him all along
he might see: in fact, he had been looking for it all the time since he
had been in the garden; it was something that made him happy and unhappy
at the same time. It was something that would make Nuova the happiest
bee in the world, for a little while at least, though it might mean
something very dreadful to her in the end. And what could make Nuova
happy made him happy--even though her happiness should come from seeing
somebody else who would almost make her forget that Beffa ever lived.
What Beffa had seen was Hero flying slowly down into the garden near
where Nuova was. It was certain that they would see each other in a
moment.
In fact, Nuova, turning away from the flower which she had been slowly
and listlessly rifling of nectar, saw Hero just a moment after he
alighted. Her heart gave a great jump, and her first impulse was to slip
away before he could see her; but when she saw how dejected and sad he
seemed, she felt a great pity for him and wanted to comfort him. Just
then he lifted his eyes and saw her. He started, then controlled himself
and came to her. "Nuova," he said quietly but earnestly; "Nuova, I am
glad you are here."
Nuova could hardly speak. She was so tense with excitement, with wonder,
with happiness that they were together again. But what had happened? How
could this be?
"You did not win?" she stammered. "You are not dead?" She stared at him
with painful intentness.
"I did not go on," said Hero slowly and somberly.
Nuova did not understand. "An accident?" she cried. "You could not fly?
Your wings were not--" she stopped, alarmed and almost in tears at her
thought. "Surely I did not hurt them when I--I--pulled them?"
Hero did not understand clearly what she meant. In fact, he was too
intent on the overwhelming fact of what he had just done, of the
absolute break he had just made with bee tradition, to think, for the
moment, of anything else.
"No, no," he said; "I just decided not to go on. I--wanted to come to
you."
Nuova could not realize at once all he meant by these words. The thing
clearest in her mind just now was what Saggia and all the others had
told her so often. She began to speak slowly and almost mechanically as
her memory guided her.
"But you can't do that," she said. "It--it--isn't done, you know. You
_must_ chase the Princess; you _must_ win her; and you--you"--she
sobbed--"you _must_ die."
She stepped toward him, excitedly, with her hands outstretched to urge
him on. "Go on!" she exclaimed. "Go on! Start again! You are so much
swifter and stronger than the others! You can beat them yet! Hurry!
Fly!"
In her excitement and half-crazed exaltation she pressed against him to
push him into starting. He held her closely to him for a moment,
caressing her gently. But soon she drew violently away, and spoke again
with choking voice. "Fly!" she said. "Go on! Go on!"
Hero shook his head doggedly. "No, I will not go. I cannot go. I never
wanted to go. I wanted to come to you. I didn't know you were in the
garden. But here you are." In his joy at being with her, he began to
dismiss the dark thoughts of his break with bee custom. He looked
intently and eagerly at her.
"Yes, here you are, I have come to you. I have come to tell you that
I"--he stumbled a little in his speech, and smiled slightly--"I--am a
new bee, too!"
Nuova laughed happily. Then she grew serious and puzzled. "And Saggia
and Beffa," she said. "Are we all new bees in this hive?"
Hero smiled. "Uno, Due, and Tre--" he said.
"Ugh! horrid bees," said Nuova with a grimace. "They would like to kill
me."
"Beasts!" broke in Hero, "I'll kill them!" But then he remembered the
fact that he had no lance nor by bee tradition could have any. "Absurd,"
he said in disgust. "What a world, where only the women may carry lances
and fight and work, and the men are only loafers and lovers, and can
only love by tradition, at that. Bah! I'd rather be even a human being.
They are silly enough, those awkward giants, and can't fly and eat other
animals as spiders and snakes do, but their men can work and fight; and
they can love whom they like. At least they can if they don't try to be
too much like us, as some of them seem to want to be. It's a terrible
thing to be a man bee. We have no rights at all!"
Nuova looked up at him wonderingly. "Why, the other drones seem to like
to loaf," she said. "Anyway, they don't object."
"Don't object!" exclaimed Hero contemptuously. "They don't think; they
don't feel! Each just does what the others do and all just do what
drones have always done."
"But how else are we to know what to do," persisted Nuova, who had
learned her lesson well from Saggia, "except by seeing what others do,
and being told what the bees before us did?"
Hero was amazed and disconcerted to hear Nuova talk in this way.
"Why, you talk like Saggia!" he said. "What do you mean? Haven't you
always objected to doing what the others do? Haven't you always tried to
do what you most wanted to? And haven't you wanted to talk with me? I
thought you--liked me."
Nuova was disconcertingly calm. "Oh, yes, I have objected to some
things, and I do like to talk with you. And I like you. But all that
must not interfere with the work and life of the community. And I am
afraid it is interfering. I ought to be getting more honey, and you
ought to be flying after the Princess." She paused; then she added,
determinedly and even severely: "You must go right away. You can catch
up with them yet, and beat them, and--and--win her." Nuova had grown
more excited and earnest as she continued urging him, but her voice
broke a little as she uttered the last words.
Hero, paying too little attention to her manner and reading nothing in
it, so seized was he by surprise at Nuova's new attitude, was yet
doggedly intent on speaking out his own feelings. "No, I am not going
after the Princess," he declared, speaking almost roughly in his
vehemence. "I stopped flying because I wished to, and I came here
because I wished to, and I shall talk to you because I wish to. You
_must_ hear me! Nuova, it is not the Princess that I love; it is you."
Nuova started. "Yes, you; just you; all you. I love _you_, Nuova."
Nuova had stood rigidly at first, but then unconsciously swayed a little
toward him. Then she caught herself and stepped back, all the time
staring at him fixedly. He leaned toward her as he finished speaking,
but made no other motion.
Nuova began to speak, still holding herself rigid and staring at him.
She spoke in an even, monotonous voice, even mechanically, and as if
directed by some foreign influence.
"You cannot love me," she said. "You can only love a Princess. I cannot
love you. I cannot love anybody. There are other things for me to do. I
have not cleaned floors; I must clean floors. And you, you must chase
Princesses, chase Princesses, chase--Princesses--all--the--time." Her
voice trailed away into tense silence, and she swayed as if about to
fall, but recovered herself, and half-turned as if to move away.
Hero stepped forward, caught hold of her roughly, and spoke harshly.
"You shall not clean floors," he said, "and I will not court the
Princess." Then suddenly he spoke tenderly, "Nuova, I love you. Saggia
says I can't; all of them say I can't; you say I can't. Well, I do. That
is all. That is the answer. I have never loved a Princess and I do love
you; I have loved you from the moment I saw you." He spoke more
impetuously. "I didn't know what it was at first; now I do. I found out
when I started to fly after Principessa. I can fly faster than any other
drone; yet every one was beating me. I can fly higher than any other
bee; but I couldn't rise at all. Why? Because of _you_, Nuova; because I
loved _you_, Nuova, and could not love Principessa. And they say that
you cannot love me. Saggia says so, does she?--and all of them say so,
do they?--and you say so, do you? Well, they are all mistaken. Just as
they are all mistaken about me. I can love _you_, because I _do_. You
can love me, because you are going to. You were not an Amazon, yet you
fought. You are not a Princess, but you are going to love. I can teach
you; I _will_ teach you."
Nuova was almost carried away by Hero's speech--and her own
inclinations. But she still fought blindly and feebly against what she
wanted most. "No, no," she stammered; "I must work; I must go; I am only
a worker bee; I _cannot_ love; it is all fixed; it has been that way for
a long time; _I_ know; Saggia knows; _Beffa_--"
She stopped short, remembering some of Beffa's cryptic words.
Just then Beffa's voice was heard. He was coming toward them hopping and
singing.